Space student wins prestigious Sir Arthur Clarke award

A Surrey student has won an industry award for his work promoting the study of space at the prestigious Sir Arthur Clarke Awards.

Chris Brunskill, a PhD student at the Surrey Space Centre, won the Space Student Achievement award for promoting the study of space at universities

The ‘Arthurs’, named after Arthur C. Clarke, the science fiction author and writer of ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’, recognise achievement related to space. These awards have become established as the Oscars of the space industry. This year’s awards were sponsored by the UK Space Agency and were presented at a black-tie dinner on 4 July.

Chris said: "I am truly honoured to have received the Sir Arthur Clarke award for my work with UKSEDS. It reflects the hard work of everyone who is involved in the society and the importance of the wider promotion of space in the UK."

Chris works in his spare time with UK Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (UKSEDS) - a national society promoting space in schools and universities across the country. Chris was the chief coordinator for the 2009 UKSEDS conference at the University and then organised a later conference in Manchester.

Dr Chris Welch, Chair of the Space Education Trust said: "The Space Education Trust is very pleased to acknowledge the winners of the 2011 Sir Arthur Clarke Awards. Space is one of the UK’s hidden success stories, but the Awards – named after the UK space visionary and inventor of the geostationary orbit used by communication satellites - demonstrate very clearly the range and level of UK achievements in space in many different areas, from science to space commerce, from education to entertainment. It is our hope that they will make the many successes of the UK space community much more visible.”

The awards are owned by the Space Education Trust and sponsored this year by the UK Space Agency. The British Interplanetary Society (BIS) are administering the judging process on behalf of the SET and the UK Space Agency.

Jeremy Curtis, Chair of the Organising Group for the UK Space Conference and Head of Education at the UK Space Agency, said: "We are delighted to be able to include these important awards as a highlight of the UK Space Conference – it is the ideal place to honour the achievements of some of the brightest stars in the UK space community."